**haa’ griffin
**
finally somene has cottoned on to what i have been on about for yrs
i even found a nickname for them DONGLE SWINGERS
cheers huie
yep
those who can...................... do....................
those who can't....................fluff..................
herb
I’ve got a production line shaper next to me, young man, works hard at faithfully reproducing the looks of the originals. The parent company has an in house 5 axis machine, plus uses a series of other machines, he has to constantly hand re-machine many of the blanks.
The cuts don’t look like the originals at all, bloated areas, when he is done, they are back on track, adds the # and the little hand drawn symbol after that, the designer is casting for rainbows and brown’s, while the “shaper” grinds out 12 a day, 6 days a week
At least these were designed by someone with some skill .
Rather than none.
Some guy made an 11 stringer board for surf show and the votes went for a paint job .
Things are changing.
Keith Swanson is a Grumpy glasser !
Keith is a damn good glasser, tight and dry, but not aired out, but…after the first 6 pack, watch your back, Frankenstein bred to Dr. Jekyll. One loose cannon…with a gun too
I knew him in the early 80’s on the North Shore.
Hes back and doing some boards at the shop i am in.
The owner Ron Maize has made his work even better.
No beers here.
I can get him really cranky !
**"i even found a nickname for them DONGLE SWINGERS**
**cheers huie"**
**dr. von Huie,**
**I respectfully submit **
**as dongle swingers **
**you may have given **
**to theseorganisms **
** more credit **
**than is required ... **
**I have for some time **
**have identified this **
**species metaphoricly **
** with the traditional **
**barbie consort , ken. **
**A.K.A. Ken-doll **
**internationally famous **
**anatomicly missing **
**a dongle. **
**.**
**...ambrose...**
When I made the Rising Sun board for the Billabong event, I was still feeling the sting of being gutted alive with an airbrushed, fin box board getting top billing at the Reef Brazil master board builder build off
Here is a shot of what lost out
lcc - are you saying by your standards any off the rack board is a pop out? Sounds that way to me. Reminds me of the thread about rail volume percents, and the comment about “holding it under your arm…” I laugh my ass off - in my shit filled head - when I see guys around here…
Guy X, “Check out my new board…”
Guy Y, Picks it up and holds it under his arm like he’s gonna carry it… lifts it up and down a bit (Like… is it light enough…) and hands it back saying something to the effect, “Yeah, it’s nice…”
Me - I’m just thinking how the fuck can you tell anything of much value from that kind of board check out… But hey, seems to be the way it goes…
As for what some are getting at… I’m so out of touch, I didn’t know there were people “desiging” boards who had nothing to do with 'em at all. I hear ya all, how can somebody desing something they’ve never even made or touched… As some have pointed out… Seems to be the way some make the big bucks…
Ah ha… I think I just got it… Say perhaps if a “famous” pro were to claim to have designed something…
[quote="$1"]
lcc - are you saying by your standards any off the rack board is a pop out? Sounds that way to me. Reminds me of Guy X, "Check out my new board.."
Guy Y, Picks it up and holds it under his arm like he's gonna carry it... lifts it up and down a bit (Like.. is it light enough...) and hands it back saying something to the effect, "Yeah, it's nice..."
Me - I'm just thinking how the f**k can you tell anything of much value from that kind of board check out... But hey, seems to be the way it goes...
[/quote]
kinda like kicking the tires on a new car LOL
Hahahaha!
Yeah - classic…
[quote="$1"]
Can you claim this by having a shaper make programs and shape them for your label ?
[/quote]
Anyone remember the Hardy Boys books by Franklin W. Dixon? Or Nancy Drew books by Carolyn Keene? The authors never existed, the names just a fabrication for books written by any number of hacks-for-hire at the time, but they sold a million of 'em, and integrity or honesty weren't even mentioned at Edward Stratemeyer's bank where the money got deposited LOL.
After reading these responses I know we are having Fun with this !
huie at 62 I am happy my Dongle can still Swing !
TMI
yes and at 71 its to late for dongles and the other as well haaa’’
cheers huie
you guys crack me up.
This brings to mind the Salvidor Dali lithographs that flooded the art market in the 1980's They were sold as hand printed signed editions by the one and only Dali. Yet he had nothing to do with them. What Dali did was sign over the rights to use his name. Thousands of these so called number original lithographs were produced and signed by a autograph machine.Then sold for thousands of dollars. Dali had nothing to do with those prints He never saw them or approved them, He got checks for the use of his name. Now those same prints are near worthless.
I can see that working very well with Boards and Fins. Get the newest 16 year old wonder kid to sign a deal with a big company making boards in china. They start a new label with the wonder kids model and you sell thousands of boards at premium prices.
Great thread GG.
So I’m still trying to figure out where I fit in this whole (or is it h-o-l-e) equation.
I’m not a “designer” if I can’t do it on my computer?
I do have the worn out shoulders, elbows & knees of Shaper A or B or whomever…
I do handshape as many as I can of a model that has me scanning it so I can produce more with less ‘grunt work’ aka truing a blank that was designed by someone else that wanted to use it for something enitrely different than what I’m doing.
Part of what hasn’t been said here is that files can be made to help handshapers, like myself, get to the fine detailing quicker whether it be a proven model that goes on a sales floor somewhere or to a specific customer that has very particular and frequently, subtle tweaks for their personal and INDIVIDUAL style of suring.
WHY USE THE MACHINE AND A FILE(S)?
If you are like me, in the business as your primary means of support, you look at shaping very differently from a hobbyist, or someone doing it for social prestige, or some other reason that escapes me.
I’ve said in the past that the surfboard industry is “a monkey see, monkey do business”. I’ve also offered up he supposition that shapers are a dime a dozen, while true designers are few and far between.
We can agree to disagree, that’s just my opinion.
Hand shaping is very satisfying for me, OTOH, it can be a means to an end.
I think how you view CNC comes down to where you are currently at with your shaping… and at this point I have to ask:
Do YOU shape the blank… or does the BLANK SHAPE YOU?
I can certainly see the merit of having any number of files that are 50, 75, or 95% finished by number of cuts and detail(s) completed… leave the railS square for me to customize, or machine symmetrical single to double concaves on this model, cut outline, deck and bottom rocker in, but leave the rest for me, or burp this one out for quick finishing… a fine tool doing MY bidding. The important point is that I’m in control of he machine, not the other way around
At present I am handshaping a model that is very popular but there is an enormous amount of time consumed ‘restructuring’ different blanks that were never intended to perform in the manner that I currently demand them to.
If you know how to ‘read foam’ you might be in my shoes. If the ‘blank shapes you’ you absolutely are not.
The last time I checked, surfboard shaping software isn’t ‘intuitive’ having the ability to apply creative and wholly inconsistent scaling and creative tweaks to different sizes of the same ‘model’ for me. If it could, I guess I could have a board scanned and then say “computer, you figure out the rest making the 4’6” ride exactly the same as the 8’3, I’m going home".
Even “Hal” f-cked up, didn’t he?
[quote="$1"]
If you are like me, in the business as your primary means of support, you look at shaping very differently from a hobbyist, or someone doing it for social prestige, or some other reason that escapes me.
[/quote]
Lot of good stuff in your last post, but I liked this statement. So true - as a professional craftsman in another field, I can tell you there is little common ground between the hobbyists and the pro's, other than maybe the tools, and there can be a wide gulf even there.
I enjoy the freedom of being a hobbyist board builder, I have luxuries the pro can't enjoy. I can build a board with no time constraints, experiment with unproven shapes or methods, modify a board at any time to any nuance that suits me. But I respect the shapes the pros produce, and the knowledge they have accumulated. As a hobbyist, I would be a fool to try to build boards without studying what the pros are doing and have done.
Designers, like you say, are in a different mindset from production shapers too. I see this dichotomy even in the hobbyists I know. Some just want to produce established shapes, using established methods, and do it well. Others always want to tweak stuff, combine shapes, experiment, explore possibilities. Two different sides of the same coin, we need 'em both.
You and Greg are obviously designers, so you know that unfortunately, designers are often unappreciated, or worse. Because being ahead of the curve as it were, they're often not understood. Dunno why, but we seem to find it so easy to criticize or attack what we don't understand.
A designer will push the envelope and take risks that a production shaper wouldn't. I think you said it best in the Stoker-V thread:
"Open your mind, your ass will follow".
If you ever learn anything on Swaylocks, it should be that true designers learn to jettison preconceived notions aside and park their egos at home when they go to work. Only then can you sustain the ability to be a dry sponge always willing to soak up new ideas, be willingto take a chance, build something just because.........even risk ridicule and not give a flying f-ck becuz you just might hit on something that excites the senses and provides an imaginative ride versus the same old same old.
Stagnation is the enemy of every true designer!
I am still trying to figure out how to sign my name real fancy like the cool" young gun" shapers do. Forkin burned through 6 pencils and when I got through sanding off mistakes the blank is about an inch thick.